A weird thing happened in Florida today: Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist refused to appear with President Bush and Gov. Jeb Bush at a huge rally in Pensacola.
The Crist campaign is spinning this as a strategic decision to campaign in more competitive parts of the state than the solidly Republican panhandle, but he was scheduled to introduce Bush at the event in material released by the White House. Karl Rove is openly treating this like a snub:
On a tarmac in Texas where the president boarded Air Force One for the trip east, Bush political strategist Karl Rove mockingly questioned what kind of alternate rally Crist could put together that would rival the expected 10,000-person crowd that Bush was expected to draw at the Pensacola Civic Center.
The White House already had distributed schedules saying Crist would introduce Bush at the rally.
The Palm Beach Post quotes an unnamed Crist advisor who said the White House was insistent that Crist attend, but he rejected them anyway.
As of yesterday, only one Republican running statewide in Florida would commit to attending the rally:
Of the five GOP candidates for statewide office in Florida, only one - Senate candidate Katherine Harris - definitely planned to appear with Bush, while three - Charlie Crist, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, and attorney general candidate Bill McCollum - definitely won't attend the Panhandle rally.
Chief financial officer candidate Tom Lee had not decided as of Sunday afternoon, a spokesman said.
Crist, the state's attorney general since 2003, is Jeb Bush's hand-picked successor and has a 6-10 percent lead over Democratic candidate Jim Davis, according to all but one recent poll.
If his campaign thinks it's too risky to be associated with President Bush on the day before the election, the race must be a lot closer than those polls.
I recently began reading Retrospectacle, a blog by neuroscience postgraduate student Shelley Batts that digs up interesting and odd science stories like a recent item about grey parrots, whose 100-year lifespan in captivity raises an unusual dilemma for pet owners: Should you raise a pet that's going to outlive you?
Other birds and even other species of parrots don't live near as long as African Greys. Why might this be? According to a study published in the journal Aging in 1999, the rate of mitochondial oxygen radical generation is lower in long-lived birds than in short-lived birds and mammals. We've all heard about the destructive capability of so-called "free-radicals" as reported in the news, and it seems that African Greys may have less free radical production than short-lived birds, and less oxidative damage.
I try not to delete comments, really. But I don't feel sorry folks who've taken the time to write something like "What the ---- are you talking about?" and left it at that. That sort of thing will be deleted.
A regular part of my life lately has been catching hell from Drudge Retort members who don't like the site's moderation policy, which has shifted over the years from non-existent to lax to capricious to hardass. I feel like it had to evolve to deal with a community that has grown to 4,200 members; others make a good case that I'm a censorious fascist douchebag who'd be more at home in North Korea.
A shirtless redneck philosopher on YouTube filmed a 10-minute video scolding members of that site for believing their First Amendment rights are being infringed when their videos are deleted.
I don't know who this guy is, but he's mastered the parental trick of the lingering, judgmental stare that makes you see the error of your ways. As one person commented, "you lookin into the camera made me feel guilty and I havn't even done anything wrong."
If you don't know anything about Ted Haggard, the Colorado Springs-based evangelical leader who's accused of sexing a gay prostitute for three years, a recent interview he gave Richard Dawkins provides a glimpse of what he's like.
